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DOE turns to private sector to build out spent nuclear fuel recycling
The Department of Energy on April 22 issued two requests for applications seeking proposals from private industry on kickstarting the reprocessing and recycling of spent nuclear fuel in the United States.
According to the DOE, the RFAs represent an unprecedented opportunity for the private sector to restore the nation’s nuclear leadership.
Ruihuan Li, Xiaoxiao Cao, Zhixian Su, Dan Sun, Yedi Chen, Wei Feng, Zhihui Zhang, Jijun Zhao
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 77 | Number 6 | August 2021 | Pages 419-428
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1920784
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Density functional theory calculations were used to study the effects of inherent impurities C, N, and O on the stability and the self-trapping of interstitial He atoms in body-centered-cubic vanadium (V). The most stable site for the He atom nearby C, N, and O is the tetrahedral interstitial site (T-site) rather than the octahedral interstitial site (O-site). The presence of C, N, or O impurities reduces the stability of He in the T-site according to the calculated formation energies. The addition of C and O atoms is beneficial for He self-trapping while the addition of the N atom prevents He self-trapping in vanadium. The stable configurations for Xn-vacancy1 (XnVa1) are C2Va1, N2Va1, and O2Va1. The trapping energies of multiple He atoms captured by XnVa1 are investigated. Our results show that the presence of C, N, and O reduces vacancy trapping of He atoms. Our findings provide further understanding on the behavior of He atoms in vanadium with the influence of C, N, and O.